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Facebook is rejecting one in five “emergency requests” for information about social media users from police in the UK even though lives may be at risk, The Telegraph can disclose.

The American company’s own figures show that it turned down 20 per cent of emergency requests from the police in the UK for information about users of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram last year.

The news will put more pressure on Facebook to cooperate with police and security services.

In March Facebook's WhatsApp site was criticised for failing to co-operate fully with the police after it emerged Adrian Ajao sent a message via WhatsApp three minutes before he launched a terrorist rampage in Westminster.

Emergency requests are defined by Facebook was where “we have a good faith reason to believe that the matter involves imminent risk of serious physical injury”.

Facebook received 997 “emergency requests” in the six months to the end of last year. Yet it only agreed to provide information in only 80 per cent of those cases.

In the six months before that Facebook turned down 79 per cent of the 731 emergency requests it received from the police and security services.

Facebook complied more with requests submitted as part of formal legal processes, agreeing to release information in nine out of 10 of the 5,369 requests in the six months to the end of December.

Facebook said: “The vast majority of these requests relate to criminal cases, such as robberies or kidnappings.

“In many of these cases these government seek basic subscriber information, such as name, registration, date and length of service.

“Other requests may also seek IP address logs or account content. We have strict guidelines in place to deal with all government data requests.”

FacebookCredit:
LOIC VENANCE/AFP

Last year – 2016 – is the first when Facebook has broken down its figures between emergency requests and those received as part of a legal process.

Tim Loughton, a senior Conservative member of the committee, told The Telegraph: “When you receive an emergency request from the police or intelligence services, the default position obviously to help and comply not to conceal and obstruct.

"It is bad enough that Facebook have been profiting from advertising revenues when hosting abusive and terrorist promoting postings.

“But they really cannot hid behind freedom of speech exemptions when dealing with clear and serious threats to security and citizens’ lives in rebuffing the police and intelligence services.

“Facebook has no less a responsibility towards citizens in the countries where it operates – just because it is an international social media company does not exempt it from complying with national security and doing what is right.”

Mr Loughton said he hoped the committee would investigate the degree to which social media companies cooperate with the police and security services when it is reconstituted after next month's general election.

A Facebook spokesman said: "We have clear processes in place for law enforcement to request data from us, including in emergencies.

"In order for us to be able to provide data in these circumstances, law enforcement needs to be able to provide us with sufficient information to locate an account. This is not always possible."

Sources said that often Facebook had to turn down requests and ask for more information from the police or security services before handing over details about the account holders.